Posted by shyla at 2:31pm Jan 27 '09The thread below is interesting. I want to sum it up from my view point and have to call you out in order to do so, [private]. I would like to be gender neutral so as not to offend or get called out on sexism but because you so often bring men and their emotions into the fray, this post is going to be specifically talking about man on woman rape. So, let a disclaimer show that I realize women rape and that men get raped but that this post has nothing do with that subject.
[private], your main goal in these arguments seems to be your desire to find ways to prevent rape, amirite? In order for you to do that, it seems as if you have to find out what drives men to rape. I think that's where you first go wrong but I'll get into the whys of that later. Let's see if we can agree on some of the statistically proven motivations behind rape.
1. Power and control because of feelings of inadequacy-not a means of doing harm
2. Hatred/Resentment toward women (stemming from a myriad of reasons-early or late environmental factors)
3. Anger/Violent tendancies (same as above)
4. Uncontrollable sexual urge/desire resulting in irrational behavior(<--your main focus)
Those are 4 very different reasons right there. You want to pinpoint and find reasonings behind the act of rape, but that's too hard to do as everyone is different and motivations cannot be summed up so easily as you do with statements such as these:
I've noticed that young women, after realizing that they have a sexual power over men, will "test the waters" in order to see exactly to what extent they can exploit it to their advantage.
If you know you're teasing a guy, realize that you're exploiting his emotions, thereby making him more likely to engage in irrational behavior.
One thing I am suggesting is that women use a little common sense and realize that rapists are often human beings with brains, thoughts and feelings.
These are the statements that incite, in your words, "self righteous" responses from women. You come off as generalizing a whole sex and their behavior (irresponsible actions of women, men being unable to control sexual urges) and you can't do that, especially on an issue that cannot be so quickly stereotyped. You have already lost your argument in one fell swoop when you use only one specific point (#4) as the factor behind rape and how to prevent rape. Since we know that there is more than one reason, we can't prevent it by only addressing that one reason because it will be only that percentage of rapists who will stop raping. And that will accomplish nothing but this conclusion:
Women do everything according to the "prevent rape" manual.
Women still get raped.
But let's just use that ONE argument. Let's act like we're only wiping out the prevention of rape from your standpoint that:
I say a rapist will rape if given the opportunity to rape.
Obviously we know that the opportunity to rape is always in existence as long as people (even animals, I'd wager) are in existence, so the "opportunity" to rape is ultimate and total. But what can women do to prevent being raped by men who are unable to control their sexual urges? Many, many, many theories have been provided, some bordering on ludicrous, some on plain precaution/common sense-but all are ways in which the potential victim must change their behavior in order to try and control potential criminal behavior.
1. Don't dress provactively (you're right when you say this is subjective-who gets to decide this?)
2. Don't sexually tease men with exploitation of their emotions in mind
3. Don't go down dark alleys
4. Alcohol-don't drink too much, don't leave your drink unattended, don't accept drinks from strangers
5. Don't invite "strange" men into my home or go into theirs. (who defines strange? how do I know they are "strange" are you sure you don't mean "strangER")
Okay-boom I made sure I did none of those things. Now, that percentage of rape is knocked out, even though I had to drastically alter the way I live my life. It didn't do much good though did it, since I can still be raped?
[private], even you have pointed out that most rapes occur between people who know each other. RAAIN agrees with you. It's not a great majority, but it's there. Don't you think that lessens your argument on how women can prevent it? Since it occurs with someone you know, doesn't that imply that it is with that person you would least expect it to happen? I control my behavior in all the ways you suggest and yet, I am still raped, and even worse-by someone I know.
The only alternative is for women to live their life in the constant fear that every single man is susceptible to raping them....and that is no way to ask anyone to live. And I know because I live it. I tremendously dislike bringing up personal examples because it generally doesn't help the argument and is often used against you but let me give you a scenerio into the mind of the victim rather than the criminal
My boyfriend and I have been together for about a year now and have known each other longer. I should trust him right? That's important to a relationship being successful or even to just being a relationship. A couple of months ago, we went on security job in Louisiana and allowed 2 other men (his friends, but strangers to me) to carpool with us. We drove at night and during the entire ride along the lousiana bridge all I could think were irrational thoughts about them all having planned the trip as a way to gang rape me and leave me in the swamps for the alligators to eat-seriously, I played the entire thing out in my head over and over again. I was irrational, irritable, and defiantly rude the entire time-which hurt my relationship because I wouldn't admit my irrational fears to my boyfriend who thought I was just being a bitch. How can you ask someone to live like that? To be in a constant fear of the people in which they should place the most trust?
What it boils down to is this: You can not argue on what a potential victim should be doing to try to change the behavior of a potential rapist. It has to be the other way around. Besides the injury and insult it is to both men and women when you say that women need to adjust their lives and men can't control their urges-it is an ineffective way to end even the kind of rape you argue.
Now, I want to talk about the stigma that is a direct result of your arguments. Placing blame on the victim. You make annendums that women are not responsible for the behavior of men who rape them but then you completely and 100% nullify that statement with ifs and buts. "If women don't do this, But if women don't do that".
By providing those contradictions, you're placing a blame on victims which is a consistent problem in why so many rapes go unreported and why society has such a skewed vision on rape in general.
So, what do we do to prevent rape? We don't ask women to alter their lives, not even an iota. Even if the scenario is so fucked up that you have a woman purposely and mercilessly, sexually tease a man all the way up to the point of penetration just to change her mind and say no-still, we do not place the blame on the victim. Namely because that scenario is far from the majority but also because it lends credence to the stigma that real victims are at fault.
To prevent rape, first the most simple solution-we start during childhood. Parents teaching wrong and right. Then, we (all of society) look at it as a completely heinous act that is deserving of such severe consequences, man might learn to control their urges and behaviors lest those consequences be a direct result of their actions.
[private], your main goal in these arguments seems to be your desire to find ways to prevent rape, amirite? In order for you to do that, it seems as if you have to find out what drives men to rape. I think that's where you first go wrong but I'll get into the whys of that later. Let's see if we can agree on some of the statistically proven motivations behind rape.
1. Power and control because of feelings of inadequacy-not a means of doing harm
2. Hatred/Resentment toward women (stemming from a myriad of reasons-early or late environmental factors)
3. Anger/Violent tendancies (same as above)
4. Uncontrollable sexual urge/desire resulting in irrational behavior(<--your main focus)
Those are 4 very different reasons right there. You want to pinpoint and find reasonings behind the act of rape, but that's too hard to do as everyone is different and motivations cannot be summed up so easily as you do with statements such as these:
I've noticed that young women, after realizing that they have a sexual power over men, will "test the waters" in order to see exactly to what extent they can exploit it to their advantage.
If you know you're teasing a guy, realize that you're exploiting his emotions, thereby making him more likely to engage in irrational behavior.
One thing I am suggesting is that women use a little common sense and realize that rapists are often human beings with brains, thoughts and feelings.
These are the statements that incite, in your words, "self righteous" responses from women. You come off as generalizing a whole sex and their behavior (irresponsible actions of women, men being unable to control sexual urges) and you can't do that, especially on an issue that cannot be so quickly stereotyped. You have already lost your argument in one fell swoop when you use only one specific point (#4) as the factor behind rape and how to prevent rape. Since we know that there is more than one reason, we can't prevent it by only addressing that one reason because it will be only that percentage of rapists who will stop raping. And that will accomplish nothing but this conclusion:
Women do everything according to the "prevent rape" manual.
Women still get raped.
But let's just use that ONE argument. Let's act like we're only wiping out the prevention of rape from your standpoint that:
I say a rapist will rape if given the opportunity to rape.
Obviously we know that the opportunity to rape is always in existence as long as people (even animals, I'd wager) are in existence, so the "opportunity" to rape is ultimate and total. But what can women do to prevent being raped by men who are unable to control their sexual urges? Many, many, many theories have been provided, some bordering on ludicrous, some on plain precaution/common sense-but all are ways in which the potential victim must change their behavior in order to try and control potential criminal behavior.
1. Don't dress provactively (you're right when you say this is subjective-who gets to decide this?)
2. Don't sexually tease men with exploitation of their emotions in mind
3. Don't go down dark alleys
4. Alcohol-don't drink too much, don't leave your drink unattended, don't accept drinks from strangers
5. Don't invite "strange" men into my home or go into theirs. (who defines strange? how do I know they are "strange" are you sure you don't mean "strangER")
Okay-boom I made sure I did none of those things. Now, that percentage of rape is knocked out, even though I had to drastically alter the way I live my life. It didn't do much good though did it, since I can still be raped?
[private], even you have pointed out that most rapes occur between people who know each other. RAAIN agrees with you. It's not a great majority, but it's there. Don't you think that lessens your argument on how women can prevent it? Since it occurs with someone you know, doesn't that imply that it is with that person you would least expect it to happen? I control my behavior in all the ways you suggest and yet, I am still raped, and even worse-by someone I know.
The only alternative is for women to live their life in the constant fear that every single man is susceptible to raping them....and that is no way to ask anyone to live. And I know because I live it. I tremendously dislike bringing up personal examples because it generally doesn't help the argument and is often used against you but let me give you a scenerio into the mind of the victim rather than the criminal
My boyfriend and I have been together for about a year now and have known each other longer. I should trust him right? That's important to a relationship being successful or even to just being a relationship. A couple of months ago, we went on security job in Louisiana and allowed 2 other men (his friends, but strangers to me) to carpool with us. We drove at night and during the entire ride along the lousiana bridge all I could think were irrational thoughts about them all having planned the trip as a way to gang rape me and leave me in the swamps for the alligators to eat-seriously, I played the entire thing out in my head over and over again. I was irrational, irritable, and defiantly rude the entire time-which hurt my relationship because I wouldn't admit my irrational fears to my boyfriend who thought I was just being a bitch. How can you ask someone to live like that? To be in a constant fear of the people in which they should place the most trust?
What it boils down to is this: You can not argue on what a potential victim should be doing to try to change the behavior of a potential rapist. It has to be the other way around. Besides the injury and insult it is to both men and women when you say that women need to adjust their lives and men can't control their urges-it is an ineffective way to end even the kind of rape you argue.
Now, I want to talk about the stigma that is a direct result of your arguments. Placing blame on the victim. You make annendums that women are not responsible for the behavior of men who rape them but then you completely and 100% nullify that statement with ifs and buts. "If women don't do this, But if women don't do that".
By providing those contradictions, you're placing a blame on victims which is a consistent problem in why so many rapes go unreported and why society has such a skewed vision on rape in general.
So, what do we do to prevent rape? We don't ask women to alter their lives, not even an iota. Even if the scenario is so fucked up that you have a woman purposely and mercilessly, sexually tease a man all the way up to the point of penetration just to change her mind and say no-still, we do not place the blame on the victim. Namely because that scenario is far from the majority but also because it lends credence to the stigma that real victims are at fault.
To prevent rape, first the most simple solution-we start during childhood. Parents teaching wrong and right. Then, we (all of society) look at it as a completely heinous act that is deserving of such severe consequences, man might learn to control their urges and behaviors lest those consequences be a direct result of their actions.